Yankee Doodle Dixie

Patton follows her debut (Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter) with this semisuccessful sequel. Leelee Satterfield marries her high school boyfriend and follows him from her beloved Memphis to open an inn in rural Vermont, where he abandons her and their two young daughters for another woman (with larger breasts). When Leelee gets an offer on the B&B, it's back to Memphis, with her only regret the "what if" of Peter, the gentleman chef she left behind after a kiss to die for on the way out of town. Leelee first settles in with Kissie, the black housekeeper who raised her, then rents a house next door to an intrusive Tupperware salesman with a lisp. She lands a job at a radio station with the help of close friends, but runs afoul of her boss' rigid rules and a jealous male D.J. with a bustle-like behind. What works is the wonderful, Southern-fictiony relationship between Kissie and Leelee and her daughters, her close friendships, and that certain sorority sister prissiness unique to Southern women of a certain age. What doesn't work is 34-year-old Leelee's pop-cultural references (Gladys Travis from Bewitched, American Bandstand) more believable in a woman older than Leelee, as is that certain sorority sister prissiness. (Sept.)